Editor's note: This week, we looked at the road each of the eight singles players and eight doubles teams took to qualify for this year's GNP Seguros WTA Finals Cancun in Mexico.

Singles

Monday: No.1 Sabalenka | No.2 Swiatek

Tuesday: No.3 Gauff | No.4 Rybakina

Wednesday: No.5 Pegula | No.6 Jabeur

Thursday: No. 7 Vondrousova | No.8 Sakkari 

Doubles

Monday: No.1 Gauff and Pegula | No.2 Hunter and Mertens

Tuesday: No.3 Aoyama and Shibahara | No.4 Krejcikova and Siniakova

Wednesday: No.5 Krawczyk and Schuurs | No.6 Siegemund and Zvonareva

Thursday: No.7 Dabrowski and Routliffe | No.8 Melichar-Martinez and Perez

Season at a glance

The conventional wisdom is that a top-flight singles career is incompatible with full commitment to a doubles partnership. Between the physical demands, the tight scheduling turnarounds and the need to sync up tournaments, something usually has to give.

Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula have upended those assumptions in 2023. The American duo enter Cancun co-ranked No.1 in doubles, having simultaneously taken their singles careers to new heights over the course of the season.

Gauff and Pegula firmed up their top spot with consistent week-in, week-out performances. They contested 13 tournaments together, including all four majors and seven of the nine WTA 1000 events and captured two titles (Doha and Miami) while taking only one opening-round loss (Beijing).

Throughout the season, Gauff and Pegula's consistency also extended to their responses when asked whether they had plans to scale back doubles. They're picking their tournaments carefully, but ultimately they feel it helps their singles games -- and moreover, they have an eye on next year's Paris Olympic Games.

"I want to try my best to stay ranked high enough [in doubles] so we can qualify," Gauff said in Montreal.

Gauff and Pegula's best answer has been on the court, though. In singles, Gauff became a Grand Slam champion for the first time, at the US Open, while Pegula added a second WTA 1000 trophy to her haul in Montreal. For the second year running, both have qualified for the WTA Finals in both disciplines.

The only way is up from their 2022 Fort Worth performances, though. Last year, Gauff and Pegula failed to win a match in either singles or doubles, going a combined 0-9 over the week. A similar blank slate seems unlikely this year.

By the numbers

2023 win-loss record as a team: 35-10
Titles won as a team: Doha (500), Miami (1000)
Grand Slam record: Australian Open SF (l. Aoyama/Shibahara), Roland Garros SF (l. Fernandez/Townsend), Wimbledon R3 (l. Siegemund/Zvonareva), US Open QF (l. Hsieh/Wang)
Gauff ranking: T-1
Pegula ranking: T-1
Previous WTA Finals appearances: 2022 (RR)

Notable stat

Last year, Gauff and Pegula became the first players to qualify for the WTA Finals in both disciplines since Karolina Pliskova in 2016. This year, they become the first players to qualify in both disciplines in back-to-back years since Sara Errani in 2012-13.

Since the round-robin format was instituted for singles in 2003, the only WTA Finals doubles teams comprised of players who have also qualified in singles have been Kim Clijsters and Ai Sugiyama (2003) and Serena and Venus Williams (2009).